Good Skiing at Killington!

Two weekends ago, hubs and I made last minute plans to go skiing for a long weekend.  We were looking at taking a day trip to the Poconos (2 hours away) for a day of skiing. 

After further consideration… I haven’t touched any of my personal days at work this year yet, and have no plans to use any of them, so we could afford to take more time off.  Our friends were able to watch Molly Waffles for us.  We were able to find discounted hotel rooms and two day lift tickets very discounted through Killington’s “Snow Blind” deals – and we own our own equipment --  which brought the cost of a lift ticket down to…not much more than a Poconos lift ticket (but for much better skiing!). So we made the decision to go to Killington, VT.

Friday we made the ~5.5 hour drive from NJ to VT.  We checked in to our hotel and found a nearby pizza place for dinner.  We ordered some garlic knots, a buffalo chicken salad, and a spinach & tomato stromboli to split. (I don’t have food pics, I was pretty much always more engrossed with eating my food before I’d remember to take a picture).

Saturday we got up around 7 for breakfast in our hotel, packed our lunches, got ready and headed out to the mountain.  We were able to start skiing before 9am.

Visibility wasn’t good at the top of the mountain at first for seeing all the mountains in the distance, but that’s ok because it was snowing!

Later it cleared up some:

Riding up one of the lifts:

We stayed til about 3:30, stopping after a great run and before our legs were too sore so we still had something left for the next day.

Saturday night we got dinner at an Irish Pub, where there was live music.  I got an Irish Reuben and a Guinness, it hit the spot!  We stayed for a while after dinner to listen to the music for a while until we were afraid of falling asleep in the dark, warm pub.

Sunday was more skiing!  We got to the mountain around 9ish.  This was our beautiful view from the top!

The mountain wasn’t very crowded yet (or we found a not so crowded trail, anyway).

Check out all that fresh snow under my skis! (While on a lift).

Late morning we stopped at the Waffle Cabin:

and picked up one of these suckers:

and a cup of coffee to share.

Toward the end of the day there was more snow and high winds at the top of the mountain.  This is what visibility was like:

It was so windy the wind actually pushed me after I had stepped into my skis, before we were ready to ski down.  I couldn’t see too far in front of me. Luckily that stopped a little bit down from the top and we were able to enjoy the rest of the run.

We stuck it out until about 3:15 ish (lifts were only open until 4) considering how much we had skied over the previous two days.  My legs were starting to get a little tired, and it’s better stop than to keep going on tired legs and risk getting hurt on a black diamond.

It was great being able to ski on real fresh snow (I’m used to scraping down a smaller mountain on a sheet of ice), and also more tiring!  I was proud of being able to ski single black diamond trails at Killington! Hubby even chose to tackle a couple double black diamonds.  I did not have the balls.  Maybe 5 years ago when I was skiing regularly (as in, weekly), but I’m out of practice now.  Getting to ski 3 days this winter is a pretty big deal!

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I think my running and spinning have definitely helped keep my legs in shape, but it’s hard to simulate the muscles you use in skiing through other workouts (in my opinion).

While trying to find a graphic explaining ski trail difficulty, I found this funny picture that any other skiers out there might find funny:

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Sunday night we were going to order take out, pick up some beer and eat dinner at our hotel, but on our way to pick up the food – the gas light came on in our car; the gas stations between us and the restaurant were closed (at 7pm!?) and the place where we were going to get beer was farther away than we were comfortable driving with the gas light on, on a cold night. 

When we went to the restaurant to pick up the food, they had a really nice looking bar area, so we just ate there (pulled pork and beef brisket sandwiches – hey, we ate light during the day and skied for several hours, I think we earned our unhealthy dinners! :)

We each tried a local beer (Long Trail and Switchback) with our dinner.  We went back to the hotel where I watched the Grammys, and I didn’t make it very long past that. 

This morning we made the drive back to NJ, stopping for some maple syrup on our way out of town.  We got back home and picked up the dog from our friends’ before rush hour, so we encountered no traffic!  Overall it was a great weekend!  It was nice to try out a new place for skiing.  And tomorrow, it’s back to work…but at least it’s only a 4 day week.